In the News: South San Francisco Keeping School Police

 

By Austin Walsh Daily Journal staff

 

Mar 3, 2021 

 

With a decision culminating months of intense community scrutiny, school officials agreed to reconfigure — rather than remove — an arrangement placing South San Francisco police officers on local campuses.

T

he South San Francisco Unified School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved Monday, March 1, an effort to preserve a school liaison officer program that has been closely examined in the wake of last summer’s social justice movement.

 

While some community members and students had urged officials to end the program placing officers on district high school campuses and select middle schools, officials ultimately voted to pursue an amended deal with the police department.

 

Under the decision, school officials will try and negotiate a memorandum of understanding that defines the roles and duties of officers when they are on district campuses. The signed document will clarify the vagueness left by a verbal agreement between the two agencies that formed the program three decades ago.

 

“I do think we have to formalize that agreement. Everyone has to be on the same page if we are going to move forward in a systematic way,” said Trustee Pat Murray. “Everyone has to know what the relationship with the police is.”

 

Looking toward terms of the agreement, Trustee John Baker said he would prefer if officers wore plain clothes when on campuses, agreed to never interrogate students alone and committed to not arresting students in public areas.

 

Baker said he was inspired to request the amendments while acknowledging the fears and anxieties that many students have when encountering police at school.

 

“There’s got to be a better way of doing what we are doing,” he said.

 

Community members and students spoke specifically to those concerns raised by Baker.

 

“There is legitimately no good reason to keep police in schools,” said Liliana Rivera, who has been a staunch critic of the school liaison officers since discussions regarding the program started last summer.

 

Rivera and like-minded opponents of the program contend it exists to feed the school-to-prison pipeline and leads to inequitable surveillance and intimidation of students from communities of color. Police, meanwhile, believe it is a useful tool for building productive relationships with the broader South San Francisco community.

 

Students have criticized the program too, and last month made a presentation calling for its dissolution. Student Trustee Jessica Rangel Cruz doubled down on that perspective during the meeting, and criticized officials for seemingly disregarding students’ opinion.

 

“Are you truly listening to the students and what they are asking for? Because a lot of these plans being made today are not considering the students,” said Rangel Cruz, who made an advisory vote against a proposal to preserve and amend the program during the meeting.

 

That opinion seemed to resonate with board Vice President Mina Richardson, who initially called to terminate the agreement.

 

“Our students are saying ‘we don’t want it anymore.’ And you know — it’s time to listen to them on that. I think that’s what we should do — listen to the students,” said Richardson.

 

But once the rest of her colleagues signaled that they favored working to tweak the program’s format, Richardson’s position softened and she joined the majority.

 

For her part, Murray acknowledged the views of outspoken students who oppose the program as well as those who have privately expressed their support for its preservation.

 

“While we appreciate the voices of the students that have come forward, that is not all the voices that should be considered. So we are looking at the district in its entirety,” she said.

 

Beyond working on a memorandum of understanding with the police department regarding the program, school officials also favored creating a task force that will discuss other equity issues in the district.

 

With forming the task force, officials are hopeful to eventually establish a set of protocol and policies designed to address issues that rise out of concerns from students or the larger community.

 

For her part, Superintendent Shawnterra Moore expressed hopefulness the initiative will make the district a more inclusive environment.

 

“There are some inherently racist, oppressive systems, not just in South San Francisco Unified but across our country in multiple institutions. And we have to look at some of those and start trying to dismantle and rebuild them,” she said. “So I think it will be really important to really use this as a platform for how we are going to engage and process and start making systemic changes.”